To quote my own post, these numbers are an interpretation from flavible.com

It is hard to see the party ignoring these numbers, if they are a genuine reflection of the public mood

PS_RalphW wrote:

Latest polls from Comres has voting for 6 of the PM candidates.

With Stewart , Brexit gets 188 seats and Tories get 52

With Johnson, Tories get 370 seats and Brexit get 1

So it looks like Boris will be unstoppable on those numbers. Even if the Labour bill to refuse no-deal exit passes, all Boris has to do is call an immediate election, and he will have enough Tory seats to force through whatever he wants.

I cannot see tory MPs voting themselves out of power by keeping Johnson off the ballot.

UE - I will remind you that by legal default we are leaving on 31st October 2019.

That's what you, LJ, Stumuz etc. repeated ad nauseam before the 29th March deadline....., and the 12th April deadline.....
Why so confident that the 31st October deadline will be any different ??

Indeed, and at least two candidates for the tory leadership contest have already said that the October "deadline" is no such thing and could be extended.
I know not exactly how this this would be achieved but it seems clear that a majority of MPs wish to remain in the EU, and that if they can not achieve staying in, will use whatever means are available to delay, frustrate, and water down Brexit.

Boris has already said that in that eventuality he will reluctantly go for hard Brexit in 31 October.

Whether he actually will is another matter but rory is v clear that he is totally opposed to a hard Brexit.

That's not the question. The question is whether he actually can. And if the tory membership start wondering if perhaps the answer is no, Boris might just find himself in trouble.

Quote:

I do like rory, he is a very British oddball and apart from brexit seems to be a reasonably sensible centre right politician.

But Tory activists understand, better then many mps, why getting Brexit done is key to the survival of the party.

There's no question that if Brexit is not delivered, the tories face extinction. But if Stewart keeps asking "But how??" and Johnson can't give a believable answer, this contest could change very quickly.

The others are not serious contenders. Hancock is pulling out, Hunt and Gove are two well known and both loathed by electorate, as well as being a bit slimy/wobbly on brexit. Raab comes across as a bit of a psychopath, and is proposing something impossible (proroguing parliament). And Javid is Asian and won't make the last four.

But Rory Stewart is a fresh face, clearly very intelligent and actually trying to tell people the truth (as he sees it). I can see enough tory MPs switching to him at the last moment to ensure he stays in the competition for each successive round, and once he starts to build momentum then he might displace all of the others one by one.

And in a Johnson vs Stewart runoff among the members, he's got a whole month to bash Johnson over the head with that question: "How are you going to deliver, Boris?"

So, here we are again UE. Seamlessly moving from "observing" to promoting a line. I'm noticing a pattern.

To quote my own post, these numbers are an interpretation from flavible.com

It is hard to see the party ignoring these numbers, if they are a genuine reflection of the public mood

PS_RalphW wrote:

Latest polls from Comres has voting for 6 of the PM candidates.

With Stewart , Brexit gets 188 seats and Tories get 52

With Johnson, Tories get 370 seats and Brexit get 1

So it looks like Boris will be unstoppable on those numbers. Even if the Labour bill to refuse no-deal exit passes, all Boris has to do is call an immediate election, and he will have enough Tory seats to force through whatever he wants.

I cannot see tory MPs voting themselves out of power by keeping Johnson off the ballot.

Quick thread to explain this rather intemperate response (and apologies for being rather rude in it). Essentially, the problem is that this poll ignores a number of obvious methodological problems which make it very hard to treat it as informative

Peter._________________Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the seconds to hours?

Quick thread to explain this rather intemperate response (and apologies for being rather rude in it). Essentially, the problem is that this poll ignores a number of obvious methodological problems which make it very hard to treat it as informative

Peter.

All true, but as point 8 says, the publication of this poll in itself will lead MPs (and maybe party members) to take it at face value and act accordingly.

How that will go down with the membership is yet to be seen
I am a party member - and no way could I ever vote for Johnson.

I think Johnson has blown it. Hiding from the media? Refusing to take part in the TV debates at all, until pressured by Hunt, and then only taking part in the second one in the hope that Stewart has already been eliminated by then. Looks weak, looks like he is scared of being exposed to tough questioning (probably from both sides, from Raab and Stewart).

Stewart has momentum. I think votes might fall away from Javid in the next round and some tory MPs will vote for Stewart in order to keep him in the race and make sure Johnson has to face those tough questions, and he won't be able to convincingly answer them.

Politics has been throwing up weird, unexpected results in the last few years. Maybe there's another surprise coming. There is only one "stop Boris" candidate, and it is Rory Stewart.

Forget the leadership debate. Boris Johnson has effectively won. Our one qualifier is: barring an accident. But as that accident has not happened yet, it is somewhat pointless to dwell on that.

Let’s turn to the one big questions that Johnson will have to confront as PM immediately: what options does he have to deliver Brexit?

We will go through the various scenarios, but it is worth making clear the various political realities he faces:

•the Brexit Party continues to outpoll both Labour and Conservatives;

•the polls remain volatile but they are showing that Johnson has a good chance at beating Corbyn - but only if the Brexit Party does not compete head-on with the Conservatives;

•The Daily Telegraph reports this morning that there are talks going on about a Brexit-delivery pact between the Conservatives and the Brexit Party;

•the EU will not renegotiate the withdrawal agreement, but is open to changes in the political declaration;

•it is possible that the EU will state this week that it will only extend the October deadline in the case of an election or a referendum. In his FT column this morning, Wolfgang Munchau says it would be rational for the EU to set clear conditions for its willingness to extend;

•no deal remains the legal default position, and it cannot be independently taken off the table: the UK parliament can revoke Brexit, or use the procedures under the Fixed Parliaments Act to install a new prime minister or trigger elections.

Now consider those constraints in their totality. What options does Boris have?

May’s deal plus new political declaration

This is a risky strategy. The DUP won’t support it. We would not rule out that Johnson manages to unite his party around a dressed-up deal. He would require at least 10 Labour MPs to support it, or 20 Labour MPs to abstain. He faces the same parliamentary constraints as May. We don’t think this is the most likely scenario.

Agree a Northern-Ireland only backstop.

This is the one change in the withdrawal treaty the EU would readily agree. In fact, the EU always considered the all-UK backstop as a concession. This scenario would invariably end the so-called confidence-and-supply agreement between Tories and DUP. Immediate elections would follow. That scenario would end up in a free trade agreement with no single market and customs union membership for the UK minus Northern Ireland, and a long transition period for Northern Ireland. It raises the possibility of Irish unification.

Run down the clock on no-deal

This is a possible scenario, but risky. The risk in our view is not that the UK parliament can stop it as UK commentators keep on asserting. Short of a unilateral revocation, there is nothing parliament can really do. The motions by MPs to seize control of the House of Commons timetable have failed. There is no majority for unilateral revocation. A vote of no confidence might not succeed. And it would not stop the clock either unless the prime minister himself agreed to an extension - which would be suicidal for a Tory prime minister facing immediate elections.

The risk lies elsewhere: an election in the immediate aftermath of a no-deal Brexit. The prime minister will claim to have delivered Brexit, but the elections would take place in the middle of predictable chaos. Even if you are optimistic about the impact of a no-deal Brexit in the medium-to-long run, it will be disruptive in the short-term. Given the volatility in the opinion polls, a no-deal Brexit election would be a very big risk.

Confront the EU with a binary choice of accepting a change to the backstop or no deal

This strategy would have worked better in the beginning of the negotiations than today. The EU never believed that Theresa May would go for no-deal. The EU has a history of adapting its position in the light of political change but, having invested so much political capital in the Irish backstop, it cannot easily drop it. We think the only conceivable scenario in which this is possible is for the Republic of Ireland to make a request for a change - but we don’t see this happening.

It is possible, of course, that Johnson might try this. The strategy will fail. Everybody will blame each other. And then we are back in one of the scenarios above.

Extend the deadline or accept a second referendum

In view of the political constraints listed above, we think these are the least likely of all scenarios. It would be a political suicide note for Johnson.

Call immediate elections

This scenario is consistent will most of the above. We think that elections are almost inevitable in view of the coalition’s three-seat majority, the political constraints above, and the hard Brexit choices ahead. If the elections were held in September or early October, we would assume that the Tories would commit to Brexit in October - deal or no deal. We think there is a possibility of an electoral pact with the Brexit Party. There will be no such pact among the opposition parties. Labour under Jeremy Corbyn and the LibDems will not form a pact. Change UK has five remaining MPs, whose future must be highly uncertain.

_________________Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction

Latest yougov poll shows some rollback on the Brexit and LD gains and a very hung parliament where the only 2 party coalition possible would be Labour and Brexit party. (according to flavible seat calculator).

Latest yougov poll shows some rollback on the Brexit and LD gains and a very hung parliament where the only 2 party coalition possible would be Labour and Brexit party. (according to flavible seat calculator).

On these numbers 2 party democracy is over in the UK

This graph says it all. Four party politics. 6 if you include greens and SNP.

Will be interesting to see if boris gets elected and if so some of the BP voters return to the Tory fold._________________Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction